Hypnotising evil : Myra Hindley, hypnosis, and criminal investigations in the UK

In 1987 Myra Hindley submitted a petition to the Home Office requesting permission to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to locate the grave of Keith Bennett. Whilst the request was initially declined, the issue continued to be an administrative challenge for the Home Office for the fifteen years that followed. Drawing on her ‘prison records’ currently held in The National Archive, this paper details the reasons for the request, how the policy response to it was developed, maintained, and then changed, and how it shaped broader orientations to the use of hypnosis in criminal investigations.